NED!!! (New Explorer Day) Now with a sound clip!!!
- Thread starter raiken
- Start date
mentoneman
Well-known member
great tone big guy 
do you use the tomcat built in attenuation in conjunction with the external box?
and what tubes are you using these days? i might be retubing my peacemaker soon (plexi el-34 style with high gain EF184/6EJ7 Pentode Preamp tubes mod) and have no idea what is happening in tube land these days other than old stuff still sounds best to my ear
http://www.marshallforum.com/workbench/ ... rison.html
do you use the tomcat built in attenuation in conjunction with the external box?
and what tubes are you using these days? i might be retubing my peacemaker soon (plexi el-34 style with high gain EF184/6EJ7 Pentode Preamp tubes mod) and have no idea what is happening in tube land these days other than old stuff still sounds best to my ear
http://www.marshallforum.com/workbench/ ... rison.html
mentoneman":abqiedp8 said:great tone big guy
do you use the tomcat built in attenuation in conjunction with the external box?
and what tubes are you using these days? i might be retubing my peacemaker soon (plexi el-34 style with high gain EF184/6EJ7 Pentode Preamp tubes mod) and have no idea what is happening in tube land these days other than old stuff still sounds best to my ear
http://www.marshallforum.com/workbench/ ... rison.html
On that clip the Tomcat attenuator was set to -6dB, primarily because that is where it was set when I was A/Bing the silent reactive load with the cab, and it was too loud in the room.
As for tubes, I try to stay away from the NOS stuff, because, as a manufacturer, you can't get reliable quantities of any of them, and the price is way too high. I design with modern tubes, and adjust the circuit to fit the tube. I'm probably going to catch hell for saying this, but I really like the Chinese 12ax7s (Ruby's), as long as the amp is designed for them.
For the Tomcat, however, the only tube that will clip properly and sound right, to my ears, in the phase inverter is a JJ ECC83S, and since the first preamp tube is an unconventional 12AT7, the only one I recommend is a JJ ECC81. I've tried all sorts of NOS and military CVxxx versions of the 12AT7, and all were crap in terms of microphonics and noise - the JJ is the only one quiet and non-microphonic enough to use in the first preamp position, and even then, I would only get about a 10% yield of usable ones, at best.